Tag: agriculture

AKILIMO digital platform improves potato yields in Rwanda

Potato yields are highly-dependent on fertilizer use but pinpointing the amount of fertilizer to be used can be a challenge, especially for smallholder farmers. 

This challenge is important in Rwanda where average potato yields are currently 8-10 tonnes per hectare (t/ha), compared to the 25-35 t/ha they might expect with improved potato varieties, better pest and disease management, and enhanced extension services and fertilizer use. 

Potato is cultivated across Rwanda and growing in popularity. But the majority of the crop is produced in the northwestern region of the country in the districts of Burera, Musanze, Nyabihu, and Rubavu. For this reason, the International Potato Center (CIP) and Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB) are focusing their efforts in this area to release varieties that are high-yielding, pest and disease resistant, and climate-resilient. 

But is this enough to overcome the low potato yields faced by Rwandan farmers? 

The short answer is, “not alone.”

Fertilizer use continues to be sub-optimal among potato farmers who often use mineral fertilizers that are subsidized by the government. Current fertilizer recommendations in Rwanda are crop-specific but are not tailored to different soil types, farm types, or field histories. Furthermore, the recommendations used by farmers are based on research and advice now more than 30 years old. This lack of specificity often leads to under- and overuse of fertilizers, which leads to lower yields and a loss of revenue to farmers. 

Better targeted and appropriate use of fertilizer based on field types could also produce environmental benefits by minimizing the loss of nutrients to the environment and add efficiency to the government’s fertilizer subsidy program.

To address this challenge, CIP, RAB, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the One Acre Fund have partnered to support and launch a digital platform called AKILIMO that helps farmers and extension workers develop tailored fertilizer recommendations. 

The ACAI agronomy advice tool, Akilimo, was built to provide optimized and economically beneficial recommendations tailored to the biophysical and socioeconomic situation of cassava growers. The tool considers planting and harvest dates, local soil data, weather conditions, prices of available fertilizers, cost of land preparation operations, prices of cassava root produce, cropping objectives, risk attitude, and the investment capacity of the farmer.

ACAI has been conducting trials in Nigeria and Tanzania in collaboration with national research and development partners to find out how agronomic technologies affect the performance of cassava under different growing conditions. Results showed large variations in response to the variables, indicating the need for tailored recommendations for fertilizer regime, tillage operations, weed management, and advice on overall investments in a cassava cropping system. 

Originally piloted by IITA with cassava in Nigeria and Tanzania, AKILIMO underwent than 5,000 validation trials and 75% of farmers reported yield increases having used the app. Following this successful launch, more than 2,000 extension agents have been trained to use AKILIMO and more than 150,000 farmers are registered for the service, which gives them access to tailored farming advice on fertilizer and other agronomic concerns. 

The AKILIMO project was brought to Rwanda in 2020 to serve cassava and potato farmers. To date, the digital platform operates in three counties where it has undergone nearly 200 trials to evaluate variations in fertilizer use among sites. These data will be used to calibrate AKILIMO for crop and spatial models. 

AKILIMO considers fertilizers that are commonly available to potato farmers and provides recommended use for those fertilizers to the individual farmers. Based on last year’s data, recommended fertilizer use rates exceed the government’s recommended rate 300 kilograms of NPK fertilizer per hectare but did have small differences across districts.  

A second season of multilocation trials has begun in the same districts along with a set of farmer-managed trials to compare blanket fertilizer recommendations with the tailored fertilizer recommendations provided by AKILIMO.

The AKILIMO-tailored fertilizer recommendations can be delivered to farmers using a variety of tools, such as smartphone apps, printable guides, and/or IVR-based messages directly to farmers. 

Enthusiasm for AKILIMO is high among researchers, extension agents, and farmers alike. Placide Rukundo, a senior principal researcher at RAB says, “AKILIMO will bring updated and more accurate fertilizer recommendations because the current recommendations were too low, out of date, and not site specific.” 

Jean Claude Nshimyimana, a senior agronomist at CIP sees a brighter future for Rwanda’s potato farmers.  “Compared to the blanket fertilizer recommendation, the site-specific, tailored recommendations will lead to more sustainable fertilizers use, high yields and profits for farmers, and long-term soil health benefits.” 

It is expected that AKILIMO will be extended to cassava in the near future and possibly to rice (in collaboration with the Africa Rice Center) over the next five years.  

www.akilimo.org

www.cipotato.org

The UN Food Systems Best Small Business competition: SMEs and startups time to shine

Listening to the diverse voices of small businesses – from cafes to farmer cooperatives, digital start-ups, and veterinary surgeries – is a key component of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit process to identify bold, new solutions for improving food systems.

Small businesses around the world that help provide healthy food that is good for the environment, good for their communities and create jobs for people locally are being invited to share ideas and suggestions for how their countries and economies can maximize their positive impact.

To help showcase the most inspirational small businesses from all regions of the globe in the coming months up to the Summit, which will be held in New York in September 2021, we are inviting any small agri-food business with an interesting story to tell to take part in the The UN Food Systems Summit competition ‘Best Small Business: Good Food for All’.

There are currently a number of competitions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – this is in itself not unique. But every single application will play its role as we listen to what you have to say as we uncover your story in how your business and employees are leading the charge for more sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems, and how you can be supported to scale up your trades sustainably.

We will be selecting not just 5 or 10 finalists but 50 winners from around the world. Why? So we can portray the rich diversity of agri-food businesses that contribute to a dynamic global food system. We want to hear your story, your journey as a business, the successes you are proud of and the challenges you have overcome. The last year, 2020, has been a particularly difficult year for many businesses in the agri-food sector as they have had to adapt and pivot their approach in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Whilst a number of businesses have sadly succumbed during this challenging period of movement and transport restrictions, closures and changes in consumer demands, many have shown great resilience. A resilient global food system for 2030 is what the United Nations Food Systems Summit is striving for. Covid-19 will not be the only challenge to be overcome. We already have a pandemic of obesity in many regions of the world. And our changing climate will provide added pressures for all. So what do you do that is inspirational? How do you see the future of food and the role you play in providing a healthy, nutritious global population?

By being selected as one of the 50 winners, you will be receive worldwide media attention as we spotlight your business. The announcements of the competition finalists will be made at the Pre-Summit in late July, where SMEs will be playing a key role in what is being called the ‘People’s Summit’. Between July and September’s Summit, where governments will gather, we will continue to maintain the momentum of print and social media coverage of each of the 50 finalists.

Each winner will receive a US$2,000 cash prize and you will be awarded with a badge to show that you have been chosen as one of the top 50 UN 2021 Good Food for All Best Small Businesses, which can be used in marketing and promotional materials.

So if I don’t win – why should I apply? Well, step 1 of the competition is a short survey of just a few questions. These responses will be part of a report, which will be drafted and presented at the Pre-Summit in July. The final report will be shared at the Summit in September. We want to listen to the voice of SMEs so that they can be heard. What can we all do and what needs to be done to better support SMEs from across the world to transform food systems for a better tomorrow.

Will you apply? Let us choose you and let the world know why you are making a difference! Let us share your voice, your story and, together, let’s show what Good Food for All for 2030 is really all about.

Apply here!

www.un.org

UN launches hunt for startups and enterprises changing the face of food systems

The UN Food Systems Summit has announced a competition to identify the best small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from across the world who are transforming food systems for a better tomorrow.

The Summit has launched a unique contest, named “Best Small Business: Good Food for All”, which will surface and name 50 small and medium-sized businesses worldwide whose work best exemplifies the Summit’s aim of delivering all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by providing healthy, sustainable food and livelihoods for all.

The competition recognises those playing a key role in “building back better” from the pandemic while calling attention to the challenges they have been battling to overcome. The pandemic has disproportionately affected smaller businesses across the globe, especially those led by women. For example, the revenues of European SMEs alone saw reductions by as much as 70 per cent, according to one survey, while the World Bank estimates that businesses in developing countries were especially hard hit, with revenues down 70 per cent at the peak of the crisis, compared to only 45 per cent in OECD countries.

The Summit will celebrate those playing their part to transform through innovation the way small businesses produce, consume and dispose of food, offering lessons for building greater economic resilience and sustainability.

“All around the world, leaders need to pay attention to the ‘hidden’ contribution of the smaller businesses that are nourishing communities, creating jobs and regenerating nature,” said Dr. Agnes Kalibata, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the 2021 Food Systems Summit.

“These everyday businesses and their employees are the vanguard of efforts to strengthen our food systems and the small business competition aims to celebrate these efforts and to showcase their inspirational stories. In line with the Summit that is open to people everywhere and leaving no one behind, we encourage such enterprises to raise their voices and help us understand what support they need in order to flourish.”

The competition will provide an opportunity for the Summit to showcase the best small businesses at the Pre-Summit to be held in Rome in July 2021.

Listening to the diverse voices of small businesses – from veterinary surgeries to cafes, producer cooperatives and digital start-ups – is a key component of the Summit process to identify bold, new solutions for improving food systems.

The competition will uncover not only the small businesses leading the charge for more sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems but also ways in which they can be supported to scale up their trades sustainably.

Enterprises around the world that help provide healthy food to their communities and create jobs for local people are invited to apply and share ideas and suggestions for how their countries and economies can maximize their positive impact.

Each submission will help inform global leaders with the priorities and resources these businesses need to thrive, and all applicants will be invited to future Food Systems Summit events.

Further details about the competition and application process can be viewed here. 

Contact: Katie Taft katie.taft@un.org

About the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit

The UN Food Systems Summit was announced by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on World Food Day last October as a part of the Decade of Action for delivery on the SDGs by 2030. The aim of the Summit is to deliver progress on all 17 of the SDGs through a food systems approach, leveraging the interconnectedness of food systems to global challenges such as hunger, climate change, poverty and inequality. More information about the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit and a list of Advisory Committee and Scientific Group members can be found online.

www.un.org

Milken Institute and Motsepe Foundation launch $2 million AgriTech competition for African entrepreneurs

The Milken Institute and the Motsepe Foundation have launched the Milken-Motsepe Innovation Prize program, a multi-year initiative to focus global innovators and entrepreneurs on developing technological solutions that accelerate progress towards implementing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a spotlight on the African continent.

This program will include multiple technology prize competitions in the areas of agriculture, energy, education, and health.

Dr. Patrice Motsepe, Founder and Chairman, Motsepe Foundation: “Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies have the power to solve complicated socio-economic and human problems. In the hands of entrepreneurs, these technologies can turn Africa into a global economic powerhouse and transform the world. Precious and I are thrilled to partner with Mike Milken and the Milken Institute to launch this prize that encourages African and global entrepreneurs to innovate and use 4IR technologies to address some of Africa and the world’s most pressing challenges and improve the living conditions and standards of living of people globally.”

Registration is open for the first of these free-to-enter prizes. The Milken-Motsepe Prize in AgriTech is a $2 million global competition for innovative solutions to increase economic value to farmers, from seed to sale.

Mike Milken, Chairman, Milken Institute: “My good friends Patrice and Precious Motsepe have long been valued partners of the Milken Institute, especially in addressing global health issues. The Motsepe Foundation’s leadership has been highly effective in Africa and inspiring to people around the world. I’m delighted that we will again join forces to encourage long-term technological innovation and enhance the human capital of farmers so they can play a greater role in sustaining a more-dynamic regional economy.”

Dr. Precious Moloi-Motsepe, Co-founder and CEO, Motsepe Foundation: “This prize competition will tap into global entrepreneurial and technological potential, including among women and the growing youth population across the African continent and worldwide. We’re confident that the competition will attract a diverse group of participants across the world who want to engage with a broad network of resources to action their innovative ideas.”

The Milken-Motsepe Prize in AgriTech was developed through rigorous and inclusive consultations with more than 50 experts from a variety of disciplines, representing academia, industry and government, to define the competition guidelines and evaluation metrics. Field testing will take place in Africa and solutions should have the potential to be applied globally.

Dr. Emily Musil Church, senior director, Milken Institute’s Center for Global Market Development: “Prize competitions encourage innovation, diversify the talent pool, and inspire new voices from budding entrepreneurs to seasoned engineers. We are pleased to introduce this approach to advancing the SDGs that will harness the power of technology to solve global challenges and create true systems of change.”

How to Enter

Teams have until December 8, 2021 to register and submit designs and business models.

An independent panel of expert judges will select up to 25 teams to each receive $10,000 to develop small-scale prototypes over the ensuing six months. In the final round, teams will demonstrate their entries in field tests which will be evaluated by their ability to:

Increase net economic value to the farmer

Increase productivity at harvest and/or decrease post-harvest loss

Reduce costs for farmers

Provide a viable and sustainable business model

Be implemented by small and medium-sized farms

Develop or integrate innovative technologies

The judges will award a $1 million Grand Prize, with additional prize money distributed among Second and Third Place winners, a prize for the most creative use of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and a People’s Choice Prize.

Registration is free, and in addition to the prize money, teams will benefit from access to networking, training, and other resources.

www.milkenmotsepeprize.org

www.milkeninstitute.org

AgriGO Apps, empower the local smallholder farmer to grow financially!

AgriGO apps, developed by GO (www.go.rw) is primarily assisting a farmer to improve the current yield, by availing the right, modern and personalized best practices in farming through personalized SMS in local languages.

What is a personalized SMS for farmer?

The personalized SMS is the one customized and sent individually to the farmer who use AgriGO to help him applying the modern farming and follow the proven crops growing schedule, depending on planted seed. Like other mobile phone users, a farmer has both right and ability to send and receive SMS when communicating, regardless the expected interest of sending or receiving SMS. The farmer who uses AgriGO, is able to record his farming activities from day one of preparing land to the day of harvest. His recording includes quantity and cost per unit for all inputs, to mean seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and the human resources involved, then from there based on his record, AgriGO is able to assist him to maintain his plantation schedule through SMS, and provide him with proven scientific best practices to apply and result in tremendous increasing of yield.

a. Best practices content to increase yield, growth of revenue!

The research has indicated that the application of right best practices increase the yield up to five times even more vis a vis to traditional way of farming applied by our parents. AgriGO avail right and best practices to the farmer considering the quantity of seed sowed, plus his location. The advisory services provided to the farmer are customized from the available researches and best practices recommended by Rwanda Agriculture Board, plus the results of Farmer Field Schools program at district level, as well other content collected from different stakeholders.

b. Negotiate the profitable price!

Not all the time market is fair or at least be transparent from the point of view of a farmer. Most of the farmer sell their harvest in a non-regulated market, to mean it is all about who can negotiate well, price transparency is not there simply because there’s no existing tool to prove the cost of production. A farmer who uses AgriGO, has ability to check the fair price based on the cost of production so that all his negotiation will be supported by recorded activities.

In Rwanda, the agriculture sector occupies approximately 72% of the active population, most of them women, and contributes around 33% of the national GDP, 70% of the country’s export revenue and about 90% of national food needed. The review of the PSTA II and the first Rwanda Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program Compact (CAADP) shows that the agriculture sector has been responsible for almost 50% of the total poverty reduction of 12% points from 2008 to 2012. This resulted from increased production (productivity gains), increased sales of production and increased interventions which drove productivity gains (yield increases up to 7 times and an average of 4 times across many crops (Austin, 2015)).

AgriGO’s comprehensive approach

The idea behind AgriGO is not only to empower local smallholder farmers but also to create a digital agriculture ecosystem bringing together different stakeholders in agriculture. On the one hand farmers can create an AgriGO account to get information about basically all topics directly concerning their daily business, like explained above. On the other hand AgriGO provides accounts for different stakeholders in agriculture. For instance, AgriGO can provide a management platform for agricultural cooperatives that have to manage thousands of farmers or can provide an account for financial institutions that want to inform farmers about credit possibilities. So AgriGO supports farmers directly in their daily business but also acts as a communication interface between farmers and their stakeholders.

Data transmission

In general, the information for the farmers is provided through USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) technology that means farmers do not need a smartphone or an internet connection to receive data. They only need access to GSM network (same network as for voice calls or SMS) to create an account with their mobile phone number and receive requested data. Push content provided for example by a bank advertising financial opportunities or reminders of best farming practices will be sent per SMS to the farmers.

Rwanda farmers receive smartphones to boost new age agriculture

Female leaders of farming cooperatives in Rwanda have been given smartphones to sensitize farmers on agriculture best practices under the #ConnectRwanda initiative.

Farmer promoters and cooperative leaders play an important role in ensuring that best practices in agriculture are followed, hence resulting in better produce. On average, a farmer promoter has access to around 4,000 farmers. With these new smart phones, the beneficiaries will be able to easily access agriculture information and disseminate it to the farmers in their catchment area.

In her remarks, Hon. Paula Ingabire; Minister of ICT and Innovation said: “Agriculture being the backbone of Rwanda’s economy, women are great contributors to the growth of this sector especially in rural areas. In order to reach more development, women in agriculture should be placed at the centre of this transformation. Constituting more than 60% of the Rwandan agricultural work force, it is imperative that technology should not leave them behind in order for Rwanda to achieve great advancement in ensuring food quality and food security. We thank all our partners in this initiative.”

Prof. Jeannette Bayisenge; The Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, said “We welcome this partnership between the Government of Rwanda and MTN through which female farmer promoters well given smart phones. These smartphones will help them to remain at the forefront in their agricultural activities and contribute on their families’ welfare.”

Dr. Gerardine Mukeshimana; The Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources comments “Female leaders of farming cooperatives need to access information and disseminate to those in their catchment area for effective operations. Now that they are equipped with the smartphones, they will be able to access and share information easily. This will help them to improve their agricultural activities.”

Hon. Gatabazi Jean Marie Vianney; The Minister of Local Government said: “We thank The President of The Republic for always striving for inclusive development. The smartphones you have received are bringing you technology, ensure to maximize their benefits towards a sustainable development.”

“We are glad to continue the Connect Rwanda initiative in partnership with the Ministry of ICT & Innovation, this time specifically focused on women farmers with the aim to empower them and their businesses, as we drive digital for a brighter Rwanda. As we wind down Women’s Month, we continue to recognise the importance women play in our economy and we are confident that these efforts to drive smartphone and internet penetration will make a difference.” – said Mitwa Ng’ambi, MTN Rwanda CEO

#ConnectRwanda Initiative was launched by MTN in partnership with the Ministry of ICT and Innovation in December 2019, with the objective of providing smartphones to unconnected households countrywide to leverage the digital economy. The essence of the initiative is for private companies, government institutions and individuals to come together and drive the digital agenda to connect all Rwandans.

www.minict.gov.rw